Guild Wars 2

marnick.4305:

Shockwave.1230:

The dye thing is a small concern by itself. The broader implication of multiple concepts that penalize players by taking in game currency unnecessarily is that you force players to spend more time or money to get that currency back. The dye thing isn’t even a penalty, but it in combination with other design choices that are penalties do exactly what I’ve described, which ultimately incentivizes players to lean towards shortcuts of getting game currency, which leads to more gem purchases for gold.

Now I’m sure people think I’m nuts, bcs my views are driven by the original Guild Wars, but I expect not to lose time or money to do the following…

Fast travel
Change my build
Death penalty – removing this was skilled play
Get the best stated items
Trading fees – didn’t exist

I expect only to grind for cosmetics and achievements. I also expect that every player have easy access to the best stated gear so that they can’t feel handicapped.

There’s a few things to note here. Sure there were no gold sinks in GW1. Trading fees didn’t exist simply because there was no functional trade system except for spamming in Kamadan.

No gold sinks lead to an extremely inflated economy, to the point where a new player simply couldn’t catch up anymore. Compare this to GW2 where precursor prices have been stable for almost half a year … Inflation is non-existent in this game.

Gold sinks are an economic necessity. The only one I don’t like at all is the waypoint cost. But on average, my gold keeps its value over a long time. As such, buying gems is hardly necessary. Even then, it’s not necessary to buy from the black market like GW1. It all makes for a healthy and stable economy.

This argument doesn’t hold true. I started playing Guild wars after the nightfall campaign, and started caring about getting gold the 4th year of the games existence. Just to do it I filled my characters gold up to 100k, then I got over a million gold to see if I could fill up my bank. Was I ever going to have stacks of ecto or zkeys or armbraces? No, but then again it didn’t matter, bcs max sets of armor were only 1k and most armor mods were just as cheap. It only took about 20k to get a set of max armor with alternate head pieces. That’s like 2-4 runs in UW or FoW, which take about 1.5 hours. I also got my Obsidian armor late in the games life only having enough transferable wealth on my account to be 1/3 of the way there. It took like 6 months, but I got it and the best part is that it’s cosmetic only.

The only items that were out of reach in the original guild wars were mini’s that had a limited volume by design. Literally no other way to get these minipets than to trade another player for them.

Basically the inflation that existed wasn’t painful, at all.

In Gw2 the gold sinks hurt and the trading post is run by semipro stock brokers.

The problem with gear that results in people grinding is that there is no low fixed price for the best stat gear like in GW1. It’s all variable and driven by the trading post. This is bcs they go from no vertical progression to more than a casual player can manage, especially if you want to play multiple builds.

Morrigan.2809:

An MMo is a work in progress it will be for as long as it runs- nothing is cast in stone. Things change, games mature etc etc.
What would you say if someone showed you a quote from when you were 1st grade and said you claimed you would become an astronaut, since you became (insert profession here) you were lying and betrayed your teacher and parents? Silly huh?

Imagine you were in your 20s and 30s with brilliant ideas and wonderful execution of them. Now that your in your 80s and 90s you have changed some of those ideas and someone shows you your work from you’re 20s and 30s.

Someone points out how some of those changes are good while there are other changes that aren’t. This is GW to GW2.

Shock, seriously. You know what i did when I was getting stressed about the direction the game seemed to be taking? I took a break. I did some stuff that was fun for me, instead of standing around here shouting on the forums.

We can go one of two ways from here. You can sigh, realize this is just a game, take it how it is, and continue enjoying the parts that you enjoy. Or, you can go do something else. At this point, you’re just starting to sound like a would-be ex who between sobs keeps saying “but you said you’d love me forever…”

And when you do find that game where the dye system reflects your ideals of social justice, please, come back and tell us about it.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Stuff said years before a product comes out doesn’t apply to bait and switch.

Agreed.

Of course if that stuff is still being said at, or near, the time the product is released its a different matter.

As I’ve said, repeatedly, there was so much accurate information released by Anet leading up to the release, that ANYONE could have done a minimal amount of research and found out about mostly anything in the game.

Another point is that the game launched and had a refund policy for months and months and months. They gave refunds to people who played the game for six months. That’s unheard of. So even if they had said something different before launch, the fact they were willing to return people’s money for the first six months (when people well and truly should have known what they were getting) means that bait and switch doesn’t exist. There are a whole lot of people who played this game for free.

Additional information available to those who do research is irrelevant to whether or not something qualifies as bait and switch. Otherwise putting small print, in Sanskrit, on the sign in your store’s window would be a viable way of offsetting, “everything 50% off,” with, “excluding everything except one item which is no longer in stock.” After all the customer could have researched the Sanskrit right ?

In addition, a liberal refund policy has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not something is bait and switch. The company I work for learned that the hard way (millions of dollars in fines as well as a permanent, literally for the life of the company, injunction) a few years before I was recruited.

Personally I do not think that there was any bait and switch, in the literal sense, here. The company did not hold as closely to the ideals of GW1 as I would have liked, but the reality of the matter is that they were trying to make an MMO and were going to have to make compromises no matter what they did.

Shockwave.1230:

This argument doesn’t hold true. I started playing Guild wars after the nightfall campaign, and started caring about getting gold the 4th year of the games existence. Just to do it I filled my characters gold up to 100k, then I got over a million gold to see if I could fill up my bank. Was I ever going to have stacks of ecto or zkeys or armbraces? No, but then again it didn’t matter, bcs max sets of armor were only 1k and most armor mods were just as cheap. It only took about 20k to get a set of max armor with alternate head pieces. That’s like 2-4 runs in UW or FoW, which take about 1.5 hours. I also got my Obsidian armor late in the games life only having enough transferable wealth on my account to be 1/3 of the way there. It took like 6 months, but I got it and the best part is that it’s cosmetic only.

The only items that were out of reach in the original guild wars were mini’s that had a limited volume by design. Literally no other way to get these minipets than to trade another player for them.

Basically the inflation that existed wasn’t painful, at all.

In Gw2 the gold sinks hurt and the trading post is run by semipro stock brokers.

The problem with gear that results in people grinding is that there is no low fixed price for the best stat gear like in GW1. It’s all variable and driven by the trading post. This is bcs they go from no vertical progression to more than a casual player can manage, especially if you want to play multiple builds.

1) You can get max armor with Karma. A character that saves most of his karma until he reaches level 80 will have more than enough to buy a set of armor without spending gold.

2) You can buy armor on the TP for fairly low sums. The amount of time needed to, “farm,” to get enough gold to buy a set of armor is measured in hours, not tens of hours, hundreds, etc. Getting a max stat weapon can be managed in an hour of play.

3) Whether or not inflation is painful very much depends on what you want to buy.

If you can get a max level set of armor without spending a silver, and a max level weapon for the price of an hours play I am not sure that there is a valid complaint about grind.

Erasculio.2914:

As far as the mechanics of the drop system is concerned, Flannum says “It’s more of a badge system, so this is something that we did in Guild Wars 1 as well. Our basic philosophy is that you should never complete a piece of content and get something you don’t want. So it’s going to be the case where you go through and are guaranteed to get a piece of gear that you didn’t have before, and that you’re going to want.” So, you’re guaranteed to get a piece of gear every time you do a dungeon? “Yes.” Sweet.

Again, emphasis mine. If that was describing a system in which one run would give one armor piece, by release the game had the system we know today, in which a run gives some tokens, of which players need quite a few before being able to buy a full armor set.

Not to mention the way Legendaries were changed from beta to release, and so on, and so on.

I haven’t read the rest of the thread but I’m just going to jump in here and point out that every time I’ve run a dungeon (for the first time that day) and received my 60 tokens I could buy at least 1 piece of rare gear from the dungeon token trader.

So yes, you are guaranteed to get a piece of gear.

Thinking over some of the points posters have made about the evolution of the game, I’m convinced I’ve been the victim of bait and switch tactics. I’ve received a better MMO than the one I thought I was buying.

Astraea.6075:

Thinking over some of the points posters have made about the evolution of the game, I’m convinced I’ve been the victim of bait and switch tactics. I’ve received a better MMO than the one I thought I was buying.

+1 lol

Ashen.2907:

If you can get a max level set of armor without spending a silver, and a max level weapon for the price of an hours play I am not sure that there is a valid complaint about grind.

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

Erasculio.2914:

Ashen.2907:

If you can get a max level set of armor without spending a silver, and a max level weapon for the price of an hours play I am not sure that there is a valid complaint about grind.

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

there are no ascendant weapons or armor in the game :P

Morrigan.2809:

Erasculio.2914:

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

there are no ascendant weapons or armor in the game :P

Yet, but all the accessories together have a huge impact in your character’s stats. In order to get maxed gear, we need lots of grind…

Erasculio.2914:

Ashen.2907:

If you can get a max level set of armor without spending a silver, and a max level weapon for the price of an hours play I am not sure that there is a valid complaint about grind.

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

There’s no ascended weapons or armor.

And whatever is currently available as ascended, gives you a stat increase similar to a food consumable.

Erasculio.2914:

Morrigan.2809:

Erasculio.2914:

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

there are no ascendant weapons or armor in the game :P

Yet, but all the accessories together have a huge impact in your character’s stats. In order to get maxed gear, we need lots of grind…

Ascended items are available in fractals, dailies, guild missions AND achievements. That’s at least 3-4 ascended items in a month of fairly casual, non-grinding gameplay.

Erasculio.2914:

Morrigan.2809:

Erasculio.2914:

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

there are no ascendant weapons or armor in the game :P

Yet, but all the accessories together have a huge impact in your character’s stats. In order to get maxed gear, we need lots of grind…

really?
I have not missed them at all- I have no ascendant anything- so as far as I’m concerned there is no need for a grind
I do have 3 characters in exotics and that was not a grind

AntiGw.9367:

Ascended items are available in fractals, dailies, guild missions AND achievements. That’s at least 3-4 ascended items in a month of fairly casual, non-grinding gameplay.

You cannot get backpieces without grinding FotM, they are not available anywhere else. You need to either grind Factals for the rings, or you will need 100 laurels for rings and the amulet, not to mention the 100 ectos for the accessories.

This goes directly against what ArenaNet described when talking about how gear would work in GW2.

Morrigan.2809:

really?
I have not missed them at all- I have no ascendant anything- so as far as I’m concerned there is no need for a grind
I do have 3 characters in exotics and that was not a grind

There is need for a grind in order to get maxed stats gear. You can say you don’t care, but the need for grind is there.

Erasculio.2914:

AntiGw.9367:

Ascended items are available in fractals, dailies, guild missions AND achievements. That’s at least 3-4 ascended items in a month of fairly casual, non-grinding gameplay.

You cannot get backpieces without grinding FotM, they are not available anywhere else. You need to either grind Factals for the rings, or you will need 100 laurels for rings and the amulet, not to mention the 100 ectos for the accessories.

This goes directly against what ArenaNet described when talking about how gear would work in GW2.

Morrigan.2809:

really?
I have not missed them at all- I have no ascendant anything- so as far as I’m concerned there is no need for a grind
I do have 3 characters in exotics and that was not a grind

There is need for a grind in order to get maxed stats gear. You can say you don’t care, but the need for grind is there.

But it’s not required to compete equally, right? The BiS is what? A few stat points up?

Basically, the people looking for BiS, aka Ascended are like people looking for Legendary – they “want” it but they don’t “need” it – they can be equally competitive without it.

Klawlyt.6507:

Shock, seriously. You know what i did when I was getting stressed about the direction the game seemed to be taking? I took a break. I did some stuff that was fun for me, instead of standing around here shouting on the forums.

We can go one of two ways from here. You can sigh, realize this is just a game, take it how it is, and continue enjoying the parts that you enjoy. Or, you can go do something else. At this point, you’re just starting to sound like a would-be ex who between sobs keeps saying “but you said you’d love me forever…”

And when you do find that game where the dye system reflects your ideals of social justice, please, come back and tell us about it.

In this entire discussion I have enjoyed Shockwave’s input the most. My suggestion would be to apply your suggestion to yourself and let those who truly dislike the current direction speak.

Erasculio.2914:

AntiGw.9367:

Ascended items are available in fractals, dailies, guild missions AND achievements. That’s at least 3-4 ascended items in a month of fairly casual, non-grinding gameplay.

You cannot get backpieces without grinding FotM, they are not available anywhere else. You need to either grind Factals for the rings, or you will need 100 laurels for rings and the amulet, not to mention the 100 ectos for the accessories.

This goes directly against what ArenaNet described when talking about how gear would work in GW2.

A month of guild missions gives you two ascended accessories. A month of laurels gives you an amulet plus some leftovers for a ring. A few runs of fractals can get you your back piece.

That doesn’t go against anything Arena.net described. On the contrary, they constantly introduce new ways to get these things – consider that at launch all we had was karma farming for exotics if we didn’t want to do dungeons.

AntiGw.9367:

A month of guild missions gives you two ascended accessories. A month of laurels gives you an amulet plus some leftovers for a ring. A few runs of fractals can get you your back piece.

That doesn’t go against anything Arena.net described. On the contrary, they constantly introduce new ways to get these things – consider that at launch all we had was karma farming for exotics if we didn’t want to do dungeons.

Coming from Guild Wars 1, I did not expect these things to be in the game and I believe they’re detrimental to having fun.

I just do not understand why they did not continue the philosophy behind Guild Wars 1, but with an improved battle system, a persistent world, and a few other small improvements.

There’s one question that no one brings up when ascended gear is mentioned and I think it’s an important one to ask. If the stat gains are so inconsequential why have ascended gear at all? Given the general arguments of those defending the game, GW2 can surely compel players to play on its own merits rather than coercing them with vertical progression, can’t it?

TwoBit.5903:

The question is, if it’s so inconsequential why have ascended gear at all? Given the general arguments of those defending the game, GW2 can surely compel players to play on its own merits rather than coercing them with vertical progression, can’t it?

I’ll tell you why.

Because the illusion of something can be greater than a think itself.

There are people who don’t like this game and won’t play it, because it doesn’t have a full on gear grind. To them, cosmetics aren’t worth their time at all.

By the same token, there are people who absolutely want NO vertical progression at all. Not even a hint of it (in spite of the fact that vertical progression existed in the game at launch).

But the people who’ll leave over extremes is still a relatively small percentage of the population.

By creating a compromise, those that are just uncomfortable with vertical progression or those who thought it would be nice to have some grind are both still playing the game….maybe not quite as happy as they would have been, but the game has now had the time to get going.

It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Anet now didn’t release ascended armor or weapons. They may, but they’ll be very careful about how they do it.

The main point is this though. Before they released the fractals and ascended stuff a lot of people finished the game, didn’t go for cosmetic skins and they were done. They left. Anet saw what was happening, had to make a fast decision and they did so. They made the fractals. They released it fast, they screwed up how the gear was released, but they made that compromise.

And since then the game, from my point of view, has more or less remained strong. Some people see it as a bargain with the devil, but it really hasn’t hurt or affected the game that much.

That’s why it’s not more than it is, but it’s also why they couldn’t not do it.

Erasculio.2914:

Morrigan.2809:

Erasculio.2914:

Ascended gear says “Hi!”.

there are no ascendant weapons or armor in the game :P

Yet, but all the accessories together have a huge impact in your character’s stats. In order to get maxed gear, we need lots of grind…

Actually, no, they don’t. Not “huge” at least. Mathematically, the berserker to berserker equivalent gives you around a 7.5% increase in damage, including crit modifiers, in an ideal attack world with no mitigations or defenses being taken into consideration. Actually it’s much less than that. The numbers work out to be well less than the damage of a single hit anyhow.

Shifty.5187:

AntiGw.9367:

A month of guild missions gives you two ascended accessories. A month of laurels gives you an amulet plus some leftovers for a ring. A few runs of fractals can get you your back piece.

That doesn’t go against anything Arena.net described. On the contrary, they constantly introduce new ways to get these things – consider that at launch all we had was karma farming for exotics if we didn’t want to do dungeons.

Coming from Guild Wars 1, I did not expect these things to be in the game and I believe they’re detrimental to having fun.

I just do not understand why they did not continue the philosophy behind Guild Wars 1, but with an improved battle system, a persistent world, and a few other small improvements.

They didn’t continue the philosophy because Guild Wars 1 didn’t work for most people and Guild Wars 2, when they had the philosophy wasn’t working for most people. It sucks but there you have it.

What you need to understand is that this isn’t Guild Wars 1 from a business point of view. The voice acting alone for this game may have cost what Guild Wars 1 cost to make. The staff has grown from 50 people to over 300 people, and Anet had to move to new, larger digs to house this staff. The budget to create an MMO today is much higher than it was for them to create Guild Wars 1.

That budget, this entire game, is predicated on the fact that people spend money in the gem store…because this much staff and content can’t exist on box sales alone. It would be different, obviously, if the game had a subscription fee.

So to compete in this much more dynamic and competitive environment, Anet needed to hold onto more players. You personally don’t like something that you didn’t see as necessary, but Anet has a whole lot more metrics than we do. Before the introduction of ascended gear, a whole lot of people finished all the content and left. They wouldn’t grind for a legendary…it was too big a goal.

Essentially, the discrepancy between the exotic armor/weapons which were easy to get, was too far from the legendary to interest most people, because the work to get it was too hard and long. People need to see bit sized progress. It wasn’t in the game.

Sure there are other solutions besides making ascended gear, but not so many that have been tried and proven. So if it was your game, if you’d invested millions and millions of dollars to make it, and you saw people leaving, and you saw a change that could make a difference,….you wouldn’t try it.

They tried to keep it locked upin the Fractals, but that didn’t work because it offended WvW players, who felt forced to do fractals. So we have what we have now.

It was a compromise. Anet didn’t look up one day and say, you know, I think I’ll just kitten off a million loyal fans who bought the game, just for the hell of it. That’s not what happened. I’m sure even in the Anet offices, there were arguments or at least intense discussions about what to do to stem the tide of people leaving.

I’m convinced Fractals gave them the time to work on other things that needed to be worked on so the game could move forward.

I’m not sure how many of us would have done anything differently in Anet’s place.

Jesus Christ, Vayne. I’m petitioning that your posts are restricted to 3 small paragraphs :P

Klawlyt.6507:

How can dailies possibly feel like a grind? They just happen! All by themselves! As long as your play experience involves leaving Lion’s Arch occasionally, you’ll get your required dailies.

Have you tried to get the WvW ones? They require you to actively try and find a place to complete them, and you generally need other players to help finish (except sentry, cause a single person can take it). This is even worse if you’re server is overall winning. Repairs done is probably the worse, cause it requires you to hope that the enemy attack something (while you’re playing that is). This is even worse if you’re server only focuses on your own BL and EB and doesn’t push into other BLs while you’re on.

knives.6345:

But it’s not required to compete equally, right? The BiS is what? A few stat points up?

Basically, the people looking for BiS, aka Ascended are like people looking for Legendary – they “want” it but they don’t “need” it – they can be equally competitive without it.

Sorry, but a full set of ascended trinkets is more than just a few stat points up …

I used to think the same until my guardian was kitted out with a full set. And yes, it did make a noticeable difference, since I waited until I had all the pieces before using them.

Are they necessary? For most content, probably not.
Do they make a difference? Most certainly!

AntiGw.9367:

Jesus Christ, Vayne. I’m petitioning that your posts are restricted to 3 small paragraphs :P

Sorry, it’s an occupational hazard. When you write professionally, you put stuff down and worry about editing it after the fact. Stories that are 5000 words can be taken down to 3000 words sometimes.

I make too many posts to edit them. lol

bri.2359:

knives.6345:

But it’s not required to compete equally, right? The BiS is what? A few stat points up?

Basically, the people looking for BiS, aka Ascended are like people looking for Legendary – they “want” it but they don’t “need” it – they can be equally competitive without it.

Sorry, but a full set of ascended trinkets is more than just a few stat points up …

I used to think the same until my guardian was kitted out with a full set. And yes, it did make a noticeable difference, since I waited until I had all the pieces before using them.

Are they necessary? For most content, probably not.
Do they make a difference? Most certainly!

Sure, but most of the stuff comes quite easily, even if it does make a small difference. For example, there are probably very few people right now who can’t get two rings and an amulet, reducing the difference the earrings make drastically.

From my calculations, if a new person started playing today, they could easily have two rings and an amulet after playing for three months. Faster if they do the monthly and or Fractals.

In other words, the difference it’s required and part of the difference is quite easy to get, even for a newcomer to the game.

skullmount.1758:

Klawlyt.6507:

How can dailies possibly feel like a grind? They just happen! All by themselves! As long as your play experience involves leaving Lion’s Arch occasionally, you’ll get your required dailies.

Have you tried to get the WvW ones? They require you to actively try and find a place to complete them, and you generally need other players to help finish (except sentry, cause a single person can take it). This is even worse if you’re server is overall winning. Repairs done is probably the worse, cause it requires you to hope that the enemy attack something (while you’re playing that is). This is even worse if you’re server only focuses on your own BL and EB and doesn’t push into other BLs while you’re on.

I completed my entire daily in WvW last night by accident. Just normal play and it was completed in no time. So it varies, but the dailies are silly easy to complete.

Shifty.5187:

I just do not understand why they did not continue the philosophy behind Guild Wars 1, but with an improved battle system, a persistent world, and a few other small improvements.

Because, looking back, they would have done the exact same thing(gear treadmill and grind) to GW1 PvE if they had designed it to stand up on its own instead of just being a tutorial for what they thought the only endgame would be: PvP.

Since changing the gear system to support increasing or prestige stats back then most probably would have been too difficult to implement after they released Prophecies, they gradually introduced more and more vertical progression with each new campaign/expansion through the use of title tracks.

Factions brought the Allegiance Ranks, unlockable PvE-only skills that got more powerful the higher your rank was, some of which being straight upgrades over any comparable skill in the standard skill pool(SY, Summon Spirits).

Nightfall introduced more PvE only skills and titles that you could grind to make them more powerful. A new mechanic was the Lightbringer title, which would not only make your attacks against DoA creeps more effective but also gave you resistance against their attacks.

EotN added even more PvE skills whose powers were tied to title progression, most of which being very useful and even required to get into endgame PuGs(spare me the “should’ve gotten a guild”-talk).

If ANet had known their PvE in GW1 would be popular from the start, you would have definitely seen Elite armor sets with +2 armor and Obsidian armor with +5 armor. Those of us who were attracted to GW1 by its shortcomings, namely a lack of long term gear or stat progression, were never intended to be catered to in GW2. The constant addition of title power progression in GW1 was a clear indication of the direction ANet always wanted to go. The horizontal progression purists simply misjudged the developers intentions on a fundamental level, which wasn’t hard given the fact how GW1 turned out to be.

In the end, the best you can do is walk away, keep enjoying the fond memories of your favorite flawed CO-RPG and wait for another developer to make a similar set of “mistakes” in the future.

Vayne.8563:

TwoBit.5903:

The question is, if it’s so inconsequential why have ascended gear at all? Given the general arguments of those defending the game, GW2 can surely compel players to play on its own merits rather than coercing them with vertical progression, can’t it?

I’ll tell you why.

Because the illusion of something can be greater than a think itself.

There are people who don’t like this game and won’t play it, because it doesn’t have a full on gear grind. To them, cosmetics aren’t worth their time at all.

By the same token, there are people who absolutely want NO vertical progression at all. Not even a hint of it (in spite of the fact that vertical progression existed in the game at launch).

But the people who’ll leave over extremes is still a relatively small percentage of the population.

By creating a compromise, those that are just uncomfortable with vertical progression or those who thought it would be nice to have some grind are both still playing the game….maybe not quite as happy as they would have been, but the game has now had the time to get going.

It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Anet now didn’t release ascended armor or weapons. They may, but they’ll be very careful about how they do it.

The main point is this though. Before they released the fractals and ascended stuff a lot of people finished the game, didn’t go for cosmetic skins and they were done. They left. Anet saw what was happening, had to make a fast decision and they did so. They made the fractals. They released it fast, they screwed up how the gear was released, but they made that compromise.

And since then the game, from my point of view, has more or less remained strong. Some people see it as a bargain with the devil, but it really hasn’t hurt or affected the game that much.

That’s why it’s not more than it is, but it’s also why they couldn’t not do it.

You’re stating it as though the illusion is necessary. If the MMO genre is to evolve as you constant bring up, then I think that design mentality has to go. It’s baggage, and one that’s derived from false interpretations. The “illusion” you speak of is actually a quality of item scaling games of yore, where items have procedural randomization of stats. The illusion of there always being something better was due to the fact that getting fully optimized stats was impractical due the random nature of loot. It’s a powerful system, but it’s intricacies are taken for granted in GW2’s treadmill. In GW2 it’s a straight up “do this x times for max gear until the devs decide to give higher stat gear” or in other words the WoW model that GW2 was supposed to get away from, or implied to anyway.

Your statement about the game remaining strong is a rather dubious. You’re stating conjecture as fact without data to back your statements. The language is vague, almost as vague as, dare I say, this game’s manifesto. How much is “strong” anyway? Who else but the speaker is able set the criteria for it, especially when there are no facts?

…it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee

I dunno, I think the game lives up to this statement really well. I’m not being a fanboy here, just saying, I log in and play and it’s fun. I don’t have to LFG to do some terrible dungeon for the 500th time to get the newest armor tier with the best stats so that I can one day do the next dungeon that comes out. I can wear my exotic gear that I got without grinding to play any part of the game, any way I want, at any time.

Just my perspective.

http://www.killtenrats.com/2011/01/14/world-of-warcraft-players-guide-to-guild-wars-2/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftaMx4_5aNU

Thank you SO MUCH for the laugh. That kitten is hilarious!

TL;DR: kitten happens.

Back on topic: Grind and Bait and Switch

Grind:
Most of the time it’s not just plain evil (like legendaries), but it’s there. It’s not gating content, but it’s there. But then again, not the end of the world. Colin said they didn’t have to put gimmicks in the game to keep people playing because they don’t have a subscription. But IMO he realized a ghost town world is bad press and they didn’t have better ideas to increase replayability in the short term. And this is what we get.

Bait and Switch:
It’s a dead cold horse, but oh well, I’m a necromancer anyway: IMO, this game suffers now from the overhype and lame marketing in general and a lack of planning for the future. It suffered from a not so unexpected crappy playerbase too, that prompted decisions incongruent to the “vision”. But I can’t see a bait and switch scheme. If it is, it’s very well orchestrated to look like a reaction to criticism and fear of the post launch Titanic syndrome. To me, thats why they just failed at a good deal of their “vision”.

I see people overreacting. And Hodor knows I was guilty of that in November. I mean it’s only understandable, given how the gaming industry, especially the mmo industry, is teeming with honesty, respect for the player and straight business models, but there was no bait and switch. Just a company that have their balls squeezed more tightly by investors, since it’s a bigger game than GW1, or just a company that chose not to stick to its guns.

I’m quite sure there are plenty of devs that are equally agonizing some decisions made, just like some of us are. But that’s it, kitten happens. Especially in big online games made with no focus, for “everyone”.

Erasculio.2914:

TheDaiBish.9735:

A Manifesto isn’t a promise – It’s a statement of intention.

Obviously intentions can change during the design process.

That’s pretty much the point here.

Other things change, but I don’t think people care that much. ArenaNet promised we would have a shooting range, among other activities, and while we can still see it in Divinity’s Reach, it was never implemented; but that’s ok, that kind of thing happens when developing a game this size. They also promised us that the personality system would give us titles and change how NPCs react to our characters before we even talk to them, and that also was gone. But again, that’s ok, some things just don’t work as intended.

Those things are just features. They are not intentions. When a developer changes something so fundamentally basic such as the intention behind the game, that’s when players should worry – which is what we (me, the OP, and others) have been doing.

IMO, this entry from Colin Johanson’s blog post, Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success, is great:

Colin Johanson

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!

Emphasis mine.

Somewhere along the line, ArenaNet went away from a system in which having fun content is the priority, to a system in which keeping people playing the game because the game tells them to (dailies, Legendary grind, Ascended gear grind, and so on).

EDIT: Oh, and there’s this interesting bit from an old PC Gamer interview, too, talking about dungeons:

As far as the mechanics of the drop system is concerned, Flannum says “It’s more of a badge system, so this is something that we did in Guild Wars 1 as well. Our basic philosophy is that you should never complete a piece of content and get something you don’t want. So it’s going to be the case where you go through and are guaranteed to get a piece of gear that you didn’t have before, and that you’re going to want.” So, you’re guaranteed to get a piece of gear every time you do a dungeon? “Yes.” Sweet.

Again, emphasis mine. If that was describing a system in which one run would give one armor piece, by release the game had the system we know today, in which a run gives some tokens, of which players need quite a few before being able to buy a full armor set.

Not to mention the way Legendaries were changed from beta to release, and so on, and so on.

The “Is it fun?” blog is my favourite relic of the old ArenaNet design intentions. It doesn’t describe the game the way they’ve developed it. In many cases, it directly criticises the exact things they’ve been adding to the game since launch (daily achievements seemed like an innocent thing until they turned them into laurel farms, and now that achievement points are more important, they are even worse).

It’s dissapointing that they abandoned their attempt to make something so fun that you want to play, not because the game tells you to do it. Daily achievements do that, but even worse, temporary content does that. People feel pressured to play this content this month because it’s gone next month. The game is rapidly becoming a shadow of what ArenaNet’s original intentions stated it would be.

This thread didn’t help me in understanding why some people have the view of GW2 they have. If anything, it showed me how Arenanet mainted all of the promises beside the dyes one.

34.000 players on the forum didn t agree with you …its a pity that thread was deleted

Wolfheart.1938:

This thread didn’t help me in understanding why some people have the view of GW2 they have. If anything, it showed me how Arenanet mainted all of the promises beside the dyes one.

Maybe because you skipped/skimmed through the more lengthy posts?

On the whole daily/laurel thing:

The devs changed. KEY devs changed. I listened to a podcast interview with Colin about a month ago (i’ll try to find a link) where he was saying how they would use dailies to “send the player to do this one day, and then send the players to do that the other day”. The same Colin that wanted to make games that don’t use gimmicks for people to play.

It’s a big of a hint they’re just too worried about maneuvering the player base and are losing the ability to see the game with the player’s eyes. Maybe they don’t even care anymore, I don’t know, but I guess it’s just pragmatism overshadowing overall perception of the player experience. They’re looking at the game like a terrarium where you manage the ants and keep them from leaving.

And I don’t think it’s evil and anything like that. They just failed at making a game of intrinsic replayable value for most of the playerbase (not me mind you, I still play for the fun of it) and are resourcing to the reward/grind/habit conditioning safety net. Because it ALWAYS works, people even ASK for it, especially in MMOs.

So, guys, face it. MOVE ON.This is Plan B, maybe even Plan C.

@LordByron
If you are refering to the thread regarding Ascended items when they were first released, it’s 34.000 posts not 34.000 players. I alone contributed to 6-7 of them. As a GW1 player, I didn’t like their introduction but I now understand that it was a compromise they add to do and that their implementation is one of the best one could come up if they wanted to please 2 opposite kind of players.

@Harbard
Yes yes I am guilty of that, I only read OP.

Vayne.8563:

So to compete in this much more dynamic and competitive environment, Anet needed to hold onto more players. You personally don’t like something that you didn’t see as necessary, but Anet has a whole lot more metrics than we do.

I understand the possibility, but I have my doubts about it. I’d like Anet to just tell us what the heck their reasoning is. If they just tell us yes, people are leaving and they’re not spending enough money to keep up with the costs, then fine, I’ll reluctantly accept.

Or perhaps not. I’d like to spend some money in the Gem store, but everything is way too expensive. If I want to buy one of those ever-lasting gathering tools I have to dish out about 10 bucks. 10 bucks for 1 single item? That’s insane. If they made that around 2 bucks, I’d happily pay for something every now and then, partly to support Anet.

Maybe instead of going the “Kitten the Manifesto”-way, they should try some other alternatives first.

Facepunch.5710:

…it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee

I dunno, I think the game lives up to this statement really well. I’m not being a fanboy here, just saying, I log in and play and it’s fun. I don’t have to LFG to do some terrible dungeon for the 500th time to get the newest armor tier with the best stats so that I can one day do the next dungeon that comes out. I can wear my exotic gear that I got without grinding to play any part of the game, any way I want, at any time.

Just my perspective.

It does. Especially when you’re also not always into a logistic nightmare before some supposedly fun raid.

Thing is people focus too much in one or two statements and the manifesto alone, and they don’t analyze pre-release material as a whole. A significant part of the “promises” (more like plans) came to be, others have a chance to come to be in the future (not holding my breath) and some have already failed.

This is not a binary argument nor it can be focused on a piece of writing or on a sentence alone.

Well from those quotes they seem to be keeping right on track with everything except the account wide dyes. But dyes are so cheap and accessible (except for F&F ones) that it doesn’t really matter. You can get 90% of the dyes in this game for a total of about 20g. The hardest part is all the clicking to buy them all.

The fact is that they didn’t expect MMO players. They expected GW1 players who were very casual and slow. The no progression game they had in GW1 just wasn’t enough for modern MMO players. I never played GW1 until about 2 months before launch. In those 2 months time I beat every campaign, did all the bonus missions, and earned 30 HoM points. If GW2 hadn’t launched it probably could have held my attention for another 2-3 months, there just wasn’t much to do in that game even after 6 years of expansions and content updates.

Thankfully the devs realized this and are making progression and content at a record pace, faster than any other MMO I know of.

I still hope we see expansions so we get some higher quality content, but so far they are on the right track.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The fact is that they didn’t expect MMO players. They expected GW1 players who were very casual and slow.

And you don’t need them. Other games do just fine without having OCD diagnosed players.

I also don’t even believe you can call all GW1 players casual. I’ve logged like 2000 hours in that game and I wasn’t even close to the ‘top’ players. If your business model requires people to play near-constantly, you’re doing it wrong.

My suggestion would be they try some alternative things and ride them out, such as more emphasis on affordable non-gear related equipment (e.g., the gathering tools, skins, bags, bank slots, etc.). Make them cheaper so people actually throw money at them. Of course a problem here is that people can also use in-game gold to buy gems, and your hardcore base (from whom you would want real money) are also the ones who have the most gold. I initially really liked the gold to gem conversion option, but maybe it’s not that smart.

AntiGw.9367:

Erasculio.2914:

AntiGw.9367:

Ascended items are available in fractals, dailies, guild missions AND achievements. That’s at least 3-4 ascended items in a month of fairly casual, non-grinding gameplay.

You cannot get backpieces without grinding FotM, they are not available anywhere else. You need to either grind Factals for the rings, or you will need 100 laurels for rings and the amulet, not to mention the 100 ectos for the accessories.

This goes directly against what ArenaNet described when talking about how gear would work in GW2.

A month of guild missions gives you two ascended accessories. A month of laurels gives you an amulet plus some leftovers for a ring. A few runs of fractals can get you your back piece.

That doesn’t go against anything Arena.net described. On the contrary, they constantly introduce new ways to get these things – consider that at launch all we had was karma farming for exotics if we didn’t want to do dungeons.

I could login to Guild Wars and in start a new character, play for about 30 hours and be max level with max gear having earned the gold for it in that time, and just play the game after that for it’s stories and challenges without ever having a thought cross my mind about am I playing with handicapped stats.

That’s no where near a possibility in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars felt much more about enjoying well thought out quality content and stories. Guild Wars 2 distracts from that way too much with it’s grind.

Vayne.8563:

Evolution and even changing things isn’t bait and switch. Do you even know what bait and switch MEANS. In no court of law would ANY of this be considered bait and switch.

[snip]

Bait and switch is to promise one thing and deliver something different. The thing promised is the bait to get you to buy or come in. The thing delivered is what you actually get. Bait and switch is a sales technique, not an area of the law. Courts, at least in the US, can hold a business liable for false advertizing but that’s a different matter technically than bait and switch. And, I highly doubt the OP is gearing up his legal team to mount a court case as there would be no legal basis for a case. Game companies can evolve and change their game over time.

That, of course, doesn’t change the fact that they made promises about the nature of the game that weren’t fulfilled, clearly. The problem for Anet is not a legal one, but a PR one at this point as the continuing threads would indicate. We have beat this issue into the ground. The only thing I really have to say is, yes, it was functionally bait and switch in that they didn’t deliver what they promised; and, we are still seeing the fallout of those decisions.

Edit: Let me clarify one thing which I see I didn’t articulate. My use of the term “functional” bait and switch indicates that Anet promised one thing and delivered another. I don’t believe that Anet set out to deceive customers. This is important in that I don’t think Anet is culpable legally or morally for these actions. I just think they were bad decisions that come at a cost. The cost is in the area of PR.

Shockwave.1230:

I could login to Guild Wars and in start a new character, play for about 30 hours and be max level with max gear having earned the gold for it in that time, and just play the game after that for it’s stories and challenges without ever having a thought cross my mind about am I playing with handicapped stats.

That’s no where near a possibility in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars felt much more about enjoying well thought out quality content and stories. Guild Wars 2 distracts from that way too much with it’s grind.

You could login to Guild Wars 2 and start a new character, play for about 30 hours, and be max level with nearly max gear (green) around which the entire game was balanced.

Then if you like you could play for a few more hours and get exotics.

People who don’t know would like to be enlightened on how to play and get to level 80 in 30 hours. If it involves crafting I’m sure they’d like to know how to get the gold it would take to craft while playing a new character in 30 hours.

Personally I already use masterworks bcs of their price point that has been determined by the market.

Where does that leave people when it comes to sigils and runes? The disparity between effectiveness of the different sigil and rune tiers is incredibly high, up to twice as effective I’ve seen.

AntiGw.9367:

Shockwave.1230:

I could login to Guild Wars and in start a new character, play for about 30 hours and be max level with max gear having earned the gold for it in that time, and just play the game after that for it’s stories and challenges without ever having a thought cross my mind about am I playing with handicapped stats.

That’s no where near a possibility in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars felt much more about enjoying well thought out quality content and stories. Guild Wars 2 distracts from that way too much with it’s grind.

You could login to Guild Wars 2 and start a new character, play for about 30 hours, and be max level with nearly max gear (green) around which the entire game was balanced.

Then if you like you could play for a few more hours and get exotics.

Hear, Hear. Best response yet, except, to use several instead of few.

Shockwave.1230:

People who don’t know would like to be enlightened on how to play and get to level 80 in 30 hours. If it involves crafting I’m sure they’d like to know how to get the gold it would take to craft while playing a new character in 30 hours.

Basically, do dynamic events.

The chains to be done may differ from time to time. I leveled my thief almost entirely on Molten Alliance portals.

TwoBit.5903:

Vayne.8563:

TwoBit.5903:

The question is, if it’s so inconsequential why have ascended gear at all? Given the general arguments of those defending the game, GW2 can surely compel players to play on its own merits rather than coercing them with vertical progression, can’t it?

I’ll tell you why.

Because the illusion of something can be greater than a think itself.

There are people who don’t like this game and won’t play it, because it doesn’t have a full on gear grind. To them, cosmetics aren’t worth their time at all.

By the same token, there are people who absolutely want NO vertical progression at all. Not even a hint of it (in spite of the fact that vertical progression existed in the game at launch).

But the people who’ll leave over extremes is still a relatively small percentage of the population.

By creating a compromise, those that are just uncomfortable with vertical progression or those who thought it would be nice to have some grind are both still playing the game….maybe not quite as happy as they would have been, but the game has now had the time to get going.

It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Anet now didn’t release ascended armor or weapons. They may, but they’ll be very careful about how they do it.

The main point is this though. Before they released the fractals and ascended stuff a lot of people finished the game, didn’t go for cosmetic skins and they were done. They left. Anet saw what was happening, had to make a fast decision and they did so. They made the fractals. They released it fast, they screwed up how the gear was released, but they made that compromise.

And since then the game, from my point of view, has more or less remained strong. Some people see it as a bargain with the devil, but it really hasn’t hurt or affected the game that much.

That’s why it’s not more than it is, but it’s also why they couldn’t not do it.

You’re stating it as though the illusion is necessary. If the MMO genre is to evolve as you constant bring up, then I think that design mentality has to go. It’s baggage, and one that’s derived from false interpretations. The “illusion” you speak of is actually a quality of item scaling games of yore, where items have procedural randomization of stats. The illusion of there always being something better was due to the fact that getting fully optimized stats was impractical due the random nature of loot. It’s a powerful system, but it’s intricacies are taken for granted in GW2’s treadmill. In GW2 it’s a straight up “do this x times for max gear until the devs decide to give higher stat gear” or in other words the WoW model that GW2 was supposed to get away from, or implied to anyway.

Your statement about the game remaining strong is a rather dubious. You’re stating conjecture as fact without data to back your statements. The language is vague, almost as vague as, dare I say, this game’s manifesto. How much is “strong” anyway? Who else but the speaker is able set the criteria for it, especially when there are no facts?

Sorry I can’t agree with this. Too many changes too fast and you lose too many people and nothing evolves. Evolution is a slow process not a fast one. It takes time. For the genre to move forward, you have to give some people a bit of help…because they’ve spent years in other games learning what to expect from the genre. You can’t just expect people to say well okay it’s all changed now..good. It doesn’t work like that.

So Anet compromises. They give them a bit of what they want, but not so much since and that was a long time already. Essentially, Anet is weening people off gear progression. It won’t happen for everyone and it won’t happen right away, but it will happen over time for some people.

Making changes and expecting people to deal with them all at once…probably not the best way to run a railroad.

Most changes to the game since launch can be traced to player complaints. To name a few:

FotM & Ascended Gear: “I’ve gotten my dungeon set, I have nothing to work for! There’s no endgame!”

Laurels & Ascended Gear: “I want access to the best gear without having to do a dungeon I don’t like!”

Changes to Dailies/Monthlies: “I don’t think I should have to do x to get the daily/monthly. I don’t like doing x!”

Guaranteed Rares for meta event participation: “No one does the meta events because the rewards are kitten!”

Giving incentives to move players into different zones: “No one goes into many of the zones, they feel empty!”

Even the nerf to ranger pets can be traced to complaints about bunker/BM rangers in PvP.